HispanicVista Columnists

Unlawful Assembly in Spanish is...

By Raoul Lowery Contreras

Just when you think the Los Angeles Police Department has straightened itself out and become in reality what Hollywood portrays it to be, the department of Mark Fuhrman fame crawls out from under a rock to remind us that the LA cops are truly Keystone Kops.

Let’s grant that there are at least four separate investigations of the May 1^st melee that occurred on the streets outside of LA’s MacArthur Park between armed-to-the-teeth LA riot cops and a handful of punks not associated with the thousands of demonstrators in the park. They had gathered to demonstrate for comprehensive immigration reform, the punks to cause trouble.

Instead of flanking and surrounding a handful of punks throwing plastic water bottles at armed and shielded cops, someone in the LA Police command ordered a full scale frontal attack on thousands of protestors who had nothing to do with the thrown water bottles.

Wielding their batons with gusto, the LA police did what they have always done, they waded into Mexicans (and Salvadorans and Guatemalans) striking anyone they could with nightsticks. Historically, no one cared if they beat up on Mexicans (see any reference to LA cops and WWII Zoot Suit riots, or the Christmas Jail Police Riot in the late 40’s).

This time, however, the cops made the mistake of attacking press people, trashing their video cameras and injuring non-Hispanic reporters. They did this while video cameras were running everywhere capturing the police “riot” in living color.

Already, police apologists, including an LA police officer named Dunphy writing in the National Review Online are protesting that the cops did nothing wrong. Dunphy wrote that they were attacked, and, that people refused to leave the area when someone broadcast an order to leave because an “unlawful assembly’ was declared. Dunphy wasn’t on the scene. The order to leave came from a roaring helicopter and no one--no one-- remembers hearing that or any such order in Spanish.

Dunphy and others will maintain that the videos can be altered, that they aren’t complete or in context and they will raise the old canard that like the

Rodney King beating case, that video was not completely shown to the public. Rodney King, according to these people, fought several police officers until the 21 officers present managed to subdue him and that the 54 or so baton blows by the three officers were needed to subdue King. Wrong!

The federal jury that convicted four Los Angeles officers decided that up to blow number 33, blows were needed to subdue King, a man they had witnessed throw cops around like rag dolls. However, the jury foreman announced that starting with blow 34, King was subdued and the 20 more baton blows to the head and shoulders of a non-resistant man were illegal.

In this case we have police firing so-called “rubber” bullets, 240 of them according to reports, into a crowd with women and children, of whom none were involved in the plastic water bottle affair. This is against Department policy, according to the Chief of Police.

Then there are the videos of cops beating on men and boys trying to help people off the ground to move away. Then, there are the beatings of several reporters captured on video. Then, there’s the cop who picked up a television camera, a $50,000 camera, and threw it on the ground in an attempt to destroy it.

Dunphy and the cop apologists will declare that one motorcycle cop was knocked off his bike by protestors. To that I ask, does that warrant shooting 240 rounds of potentially injurious pieces of plastic into a crowd packed with defenseless women and children running away from an assault by hundreds of police officers?

I ask if people would be punished because they have no idea what the English words “unlawful assembly” even sound like, much less mean? The apologists will blame the women and children because they didn’t hear or if they did, understand the words “unlawful assembly” because they haven’t learned enough English. So, its their fault, not of the cops, even faultless like the Spanish speaking cops that are paid extra for being bilingual officers. Were any such bilinguals present when the order was issued to attack?

Of course, it isn’t the fault of the demonstrators; it’s the fault of the cop who gave the order to attack and to fire. He violated department policy and protocols.

I’ll bet also that he doesn’t know the words “unlawful assembly” in Spanish nor do his underlings. Can it be “unlawful assembly” in Spanish may possibly be: “asemblia ilegal, or, reunion ilegal, or, convocacion ilegal”…?

I’ll also bet that he doesn’t care what the Department policy is regarding firing anything into crowds.

He can’t possibly, for he is a ranking officer in Mark Fuhrman’s Los Angeles Police department. The difference is that Fuhrman had the good sense to admit he lied under oath and, of course, he hid his mysterious O.J. evidence peccadilloes under cover of darkness.

This cop and we shall soon know his name, made the mistake of violating dozens of state and federal laws in broad daylight and in front of video cameras that do provide context. Can’t wait to know the name of this LA police officer. It can’t be Mark Fuhrman can it? Naw…

Contreras’ books, THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA?? and, A HISPANIC VIEW OF AMERICAN POLITICS AND THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION are available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com